


Offer and Acceptance

by nirejseki, robininthelabyrinth (nirejseki)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s02e03 Family of Rogues, Families of Choice, Forced Prostitution, Len loves his family, M/M, Sort Of, Sugar Daddy, unrealistic white knighting but Barry's thought really hard about this okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 11:04:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14377314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/robininthelabyrinth
Summary: B's one of Len's favorite clients: young, chipper, sweet, and, as an extra plus, hevibrates. But for all that Len likes him, what they have can't be anything serious.At least, not until B discovers the secret Len's been keeping and makes Len a very interesting offer...





	Offer and Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

> For coldflashweeks 2018: Stripper/Prostitute/Kept Man AU

"I'm rich, you know," the kid blurts out.

Len pauses mid-lap dance. He'd been _about_ to sink down onto his knees for the actual going down portion of the evening, at least until B - one of his favorite clients, he's not going to lie, a sweet twenty-something with earnest brown eyes and a wicked sense of humor that sneaks out when he's not over-thinking things, and which Len only really thinks of as a kid when he does stupid things, for instance like blurt things out in the middle of a lap dance - decided to speak up with, as far as Len can tell, a total non-sequiter. 

"Okay," Len says, out of lack of anything better to say. "Uh. Mazel tov?"

B blushes. 

Len likes the fact that he blushes. As he said, B's cute, and to be perfectly honest Len doesn't see all that many clients who are still capable of blushing. That being said, if B has enough blood available to run up to his face, Len is really doing his job wrong. 

"It's not that," B says, his face still on fire. "Wow, that really wasn't how I intended to start this. It's - I -"

"I mean, I know you've gotta have _some_ cash," Len points out, still not a hundred percent sure where this conversation is going. "I'm not exactly the cheapest hooker on the block."

He is, however, one of the few hookers that put "metas accepted, no judgment" on his ads more or less the day after the media coined the term, which is how B ended up finding him. Normally Len charges a surcharge for meta clients, but honestly, sleeping with B - a speedster who starts to vibrate when he gets nervous or aroused - is _way_ too much fun for him to justify the extra charge. 

Don't want to discourage him from coming back, after all.

Seriously. Not only is B cute as anything, he _vibrates_. Len has no idea why he's still seeing a hooker after all these months; there's gotta be people interested in hitting that. If B ever decided to take up hustling himself, he could make a _killing_ with that skillset.

Though clearly, Len didn't need to bother cutting the surcharge, if B's _rich_ and all. 

Len smirks at B, who manages, if at all possible, to turn even more red.

Len's starting to worry that B won't have any blood _left_.

"I know that you're not cheap," B mutters. "Not that I'd ever imply you were cheap! That wasn't what I meant - I just - I wanted -"

"Do you want to talk taxes?" Len teases. "I'm technically a certified CPA, you know, got my degree in prison one time -"

"That's just it!" B exclaims, suddenly sitting upright with a fire blazing in his eyes (and maybe the slightest crackle of electricity, but hey, speedster). "You - you do so _much_ , Len! You're an accountant and a thief and - do you even _like_ sex work?"

Len blinks, taken aback. "What?"

"I mean, I didn't want to say anything at first," B says, words spilling out in that over-fast way he has, a way that Len initially thought was because of him being a speedster but which he's grown to suspect is just how B thinks and talks. "I didn't want to be _that_ guy, you know, the white knight with the caveman views on sex work - ooga booga, all sex workers are helpless victims getting traumatized and getting sex trafficked -"

Len sniggers. "Ooga booga? Really?"

"My primary experience of cavemen is with the Flintstones, okay?" B grumbles. "Not the point I was making. But seriously, Len, if I thought you were doing this because you enjoyed it, or because it's a good way to make money, then I wouldn't say anything. But you _don't_ like it -"

"Hey," Len protests, less because B's wrong and more because he's got his professional pride, even if it isn't exactly in his chosen profession. He would've much preferred to be a thief, but sometimes life just didn't pan out that way, but just because the situation's complicated doesn't mean he can't take pleasure in being damn good at what he does. "I like sex. What, are you saying you don't think I've been appropriately enthusiastic -"

"No, no, you're amazing, you're _always_ amazing -"

"Even the time I misjudged how close the side of the bed was, nearly fell off, and ended up falling down on your dick elbow first?" Len asks skeptically. 

B blushes again, just when the last round seemed to have been fading away. "I kinda liked that, actually -"

"Uh- _huh_. Really? You been holding some kinks out on me, then?"

"No!" B squawks. He's now officially bright red again. Maybe the blood just flows faster for a speedster? "No, not the - elbow - that sucked - I meant the bit _after_ that, where you started apologizing and I made that squeaky noise and then you started _laughing_ at me -"

Len remembers. He'd been utterly unable to stop himself; B had sounded like a defective dog toy. Len'd been sure that he was about to lose one of his best clients because he couldn't control himself -

( _you always lose everything because you can't control yourself_ )

\- but no, B'd started laughing too, squeaky edge to his voice and all, and then that speedster healing of his finally kicked in so he was actually even okay, though obviously the mood had been totally and supremely ruined. They'd ended up sharing a bottle of wine for the rest of Len's allotted time there, a shitty boxed wine so bad that Len told B that he was ashamed of him, and Len was a goddamn slum kid and when slum kids are ashamed of your eating or drinking habits, you've _really_ got issues, so clearly it was time for B to up his standards. Maybe consider getting something white next time, too, to avoid the stains?

B'd brought a nice Riesling to their next meeting, nicer than anything Len's ever had before, B's lips quirked in a sardonic grin; they'd ended up splitting it before getting down to business, the tipsiness slowing down their usual pace until it was slow and nice and full of laughter.

Yeah. 

Len remembers. 

"I just -" B says. "I liked that. I - I'd like that. Again. Preferably without the elbow to the groin bit."

Len arches his eyebrows a little, not bothering to hide his smile. "Well," he drawls. "I hate to use the phrase 'the customer is always right', B, but in this instance it does seem appropriate -"

But no, B's shaking his head. "Not - not for a night," he mutters. "For good."

Len's eyebrows go even further up. "I - _what_?"

"I'm rich," B says again, and this time the blush has faded and he just looks determined. "Okay, I – this was supposed to come at the _end_ of the big speech so that it wouldn't come off as pressuring you, but since I started here I might as well keep going or it won't make any sense. So: I recently inherited a lot of money - like, a _lot_ \- and - and if you wanted to, only if you wanted to, then I'd like to - I'd want to - I want to buy _all_ your nights."

"Even with your metabolism, that's a bit crazy," Len says dumbly. B can't be serious.

Except, bizarrely enough, he does actually seem to be. Serious, that is. 

What has Len gotten himself into?

What's worst, too, is that he can _see_ it, all of a sudden. B and bottles of wine and a bed just for them instead of a shitty hotel room, not having to stop because time's up and Len needs to go to his next client, maybe not even having to have sex every time, either. Just - being there, together, just because they want to be.

Just because they'd be together.

Len has to swallow around the lump in his throat.

He hadn't realized it was even something he'd want, not until it was offered to him. But now that it's been offered, he realizes that he _does_ want it. He wants it so bad. He wants it worse than most of the things he's ever wanted in his life.

And that's why it's going to kill him to have to turn it down.

“- and I know you have debts,” B is saying earnestly. “Lots of them – school bills, medical bills, that sort of thing – and I can help with that –”

"B -" Len starts, then falters. "I don’t - I _can't_ -"

"I have a house," B interrupts. "I guess I kind of inherited that, too. It's pretty big. You - you could bring your friends."

Len freezes.

"And your sister," B adds.

Right.

Len's told him about her.

About them.

His friends, his _family_ , the guys he'd go to bat for through thick and thin and back again. Lisa, and Mick, and Mark, and Shawna, and even those eternal fuck-heads Sam and Rosa -

The real reason he's here.

"I - B -" he breathes. "You don't understand -"

"I understand more than you might think," B says, and his expression has gone solemn. "I know – I wanted you to know that I thought of offering you this first. I wanted you to be with me for good, but I did some thinking about this, you know? I started thinking about it and I thought that you might not accept my offer, and then I wanted to know _why_ you wouldn't accept it –”

“It ain’t you,” Len tries to clarify, but you can’t stop B when he’s off and running, and that applies as much to his motor-mouth as it does to his speedster-fast feet. 

“– and, like, I started to do some digging about why you wouldn’t take it and how I could offer it to you in a way you'd accept it and – I - I want you to know that I know, now. I found out.”

Len stares at him.

He couldn’t mean -

“I mean it,” B says softly. “I _know_. I know about _him_. The one that's making you do this."

Len’s mouth has suddenly gone very dry. "He didn't get to you, did he?" he demands, and his voice is shaking. His voice _never_ shakes. But thinking about his B in the hands of - no. It couldn't be. _No_. "Tell me he didn't - tell me -"

"I'm okay," B says, reaching for Len, putting steadying hands on his shoulders. "I'm okay, Len, I promise - you know how I'm the Flash, right?"

Len's shoulders slump and he glares half-heartedly at B. "Damnit, B, I thought we were both pretending that I _didn't_ know that. Wasn't that your whole reason for hiring a hooker to begin with? So that you could figure out your whole 'vibrating during sex' thing with complete discretion, without anyone figuring out that you're - you know?"

B grins a little. "Well, yeah," he says. "At _first_. I've mastered it now."

"Yeah, now you just vibrate for fun and profit, usually my profit," Len says, trying to get back into teasing mode, but it's not working right. He can't do it, not after thinking about - 

About _him_.

"Yeah, well," B says, and he's gotten serious again, too. "My job as the Flash is to keep people safe from metas that are abusing their powers. And I don't think there's many metas out there abusing their power more than Bomb-blast."

"Bomb-blast?" Len echoes. That's new. 

Kind of dumb.

B shrugs. "Cisco thought of it. Because, you know his power..."

B's had slides up from Len's shoulder to trace the very edge of Len's hairline, back by the nape of his neck and the top of his spine, right where there's an all-but invisible lump of something hiding under the skin. 

"Because his power is to create bombs," Len finishes. "And to put them in people's heads so he can blackmail them into doing what he wants, no surgery, no trigger needed."

"And if you disobey him..." B mimes an explosion with his hand. 

"Yeah," Len says, his mouth dry. His dad made a point of demonstrating to him what his powers looked like.

Len'd thrown up, after. 

At least he'd had the wits to do it in private and avoid his dad beating him for showing weakness.

"Once we found out about him, that's when we figured out that - that _that's_ why you do this," B says, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. "You and your friends. That's why you steal for him. That's why you hustle for him - not that he even _needs_ the money from that, given how good a thief you are, he's just making you do it to _humiliate_ you, that's why you have time limits, because you need to hit that stupid _quota_ of his -"

"B, I was a thief even without -"

"I know," B says. "I _know_. CCPD, remember? I've seen your record, and there's a lot more arrests for theft and robbery and burglary and stuff than there is for indecent exposure and solicitation. But - listen, like I said, if I thought sex work was something you _chose_ , then I'd be fine with it and I'd never offer anything - because it'd be okay, but this? This isn't okay. What's happening to you now isn't okay, when you're just doing it because of that _bastard_ -"

"He's my dad," Len blurts out, and B falls silent.

Len hadn't meant to admit that.

"I've been doing this a lot longer than he had the powers to force the issue," Len adds, unable to stop himself. It was true, too, and had been for years; Lewis was always coming around, demanding money or that Len perform certain services for certain people to get Lewis what he wanted. It hadn't been so regular before, no quotas or the million little humiliations he endures now, that stuff hadn't started until Lewis got the ability to exercise a far worse threat than Len had ever imagined, before he'd put bombs in the heads of everyone Len had ever cared about and forced them into the same servitude as Len, but it was true. 

B deserves to know what he was dealing with here, because Lewis is rotten stuff, yes, but Len is his _son_ , and all that same rottenness flows in his veins, too, and B deserves better than -

"I'll kill him," B says. 

"What?" Len asks, pulling back to stare at him. He's - he's still on B's lap, he realizes. "B, the Flash doesn't kill."

"For you, I'd do it," B says. "Or I'll help you do it, if that's what you'd prefer. For what he's doing to you - he deserves it."

"But -" Len says, his hand drifting up to his neck. "What about..?"

"You introduced me to Lisa," B says. "At the school, so we could help her out with the engineering stuff she's doing in her spare time, remember? That's - that's how we found out about the bombs -"

"She _told_?!" Len demands, alarmed. If she told someone who didn't already know about it, then the bomb would go off - it might be ticking down to a grisly conclusion even now -

"Uh, no, not quite," B says. "I think, like, Pictionary was involved? Maybe interpretive dance?"

...actually, that sounded a lot like something Lisa would do.

"Anyway," B says. "When I decided I wanted to ask you to give this up, I asked her for permission -"

"You're not asking to marry me, B," Len says, a little amused.

"I'm asking for you to change your life for me," B says stubbornly. "It's just as important. But that's when she got the idea, I guess, of letting us know? She got the info to Cisco, and he told me, and we've been working with her on the bomb. We've figured out a way to neutralize it. I - I was going to offer that, too, tonight. Actually, I was going to offer that part _first_ so you wouldn't think the cure is contingent on you accepting my offer, which it _totally isn't_ , I just wanted - ugh, I just got confused because I really want you, I want you with me, and I didn't know how to start -"

"You still want..." Len trails off. Even now that B knows?

"You _bet_ I do," B says fiercely. "I want you to move into Wells' old house with me. I want your friends to live there with us, the way you live with them now, except somewhere better than the worst pit of the slums. I want you to be _free_ and _happy_ , and - and if you want to keep doing sex work, that's totally your choice - and it doesn't even have to involve me - and I mean, if you wanted the money and the house and stuff and for me not to be around, I'd sign the house over to you in a heartbeat, if that's what you'd like - "

"You idiot," Len says, and kisses him. 

"Is that a yes?" B asks afterwards. "To what part? I mean, I don't want to pressure you or -"

"Yes, you can work with your friends remove _you know_ ," Len says. "Yes, we'll move into the house. Yes, we'll be moving in _together_ , you idiot, I'm not taking your house, why would you even offer that? But just so you know, we're all terrible roommates, all of us, so I'm just giving you fair notice of that - Mick lights fires, and Mark sings in the shower, and Shawna pigs out on anything in the fridge even if it isn't hers -"

"We can get more than one fridge," B says. He's beaming. "Possibly a lock."

"And as for your other question, no, I don't want to keep doing sex work," Len continues. "It's fun, don't get me wrong, it's not traumatizing or anything, but all things considered, if it's on the offer, I'd rather just sleep with you, and possibly anyone we opt to invite in with us."

B is beaming even more now.

"Plus, that means I can go back to making money the way I prefer," Len adds. He didn't stop planning heists just because his dad got to him, even though Len was never willing to suggest any of those plans to his dad. They weren't for his dad, anyway. They were for _him_ \- his one refuge of sanity, his own twisted version of dreaming of a better life. 

"I don't suppose that that way involves accounting," B says, but he hasn't stopped smiling.

"Oddly enough," Len says, "it doesn't. You okay with that, _Flash_?"

B shivers. 

Would you look at that, Len thinks they've found a brand new kink. 

"Well, Flash?" he drawls, long and low. "What do you say about that, _Flash_?"

"Uh, yeah," B says, his cheeks going red again. Not red enough that there isn't some very interested stirring lower down, though. Seriously, do speedsters just have an infinite supply of blood or something? "I - I think we can deal with that. Just, you know, if I see you, I'll have to stop you."

"You mean if I don't stop you first," Len purrs. "Maybe I've put some thought into it - how to stop the Flash in his tracks. How to have him at _my_ mercy..."

"Oh," B says, eyes fixed on Len. "Yeah. I - I could go for that. I could _definitely_ go for that."

Len smirks. Yes, he's well aware.

"We should go to STAR Labs now, though," B adds, a little reluctantly. "The cure -"

"Can wait a few minutes," Len says. "It's not like my dad has activated it yet - if you've been secretive enough, he probably doesn't even know you've been working on fixing it - and he's gotten comfortable not needing to do anything or monitor us."

"I mean, I guess, but -"

"Besides," Len continues, sliding down to the ground the way he was originally intending, "if I do my job right, you're not going to last more than a few minutes, anyway."

"Not your job," B says, and he's grinning. "Not anymore. Not with me."

"Nope," Len says. "Not with you."

And that, as they say, is that.

Well.

Except the part where it really, really isn't and wow, did Len underestimate the sheer amount of _absolute utter chaos_ that comes along with being part of Team Flash. And that's _before_ his entire batshit crazy family decides that they want to set themselves up as a quasi-fake villain-anti-hero group in order to infiltrate the bad guys, which - what the fuck even, guys?

Len can't be the both the Flash's love interest _and_ one of his bad guys!

(It turns out he can.)


End file.
